My Dream, My Destiny:The heiress's second chance

Chapter 2

Dinner.

I should have known.

I took my seat ,a maid pulled out the chair for me, which was simply how things worked and reached for the nearest bowl. Lifted the lid.

Stared at the macaroni.

Set the lid back down.

"Mum." I kept my voice completely even. "You know I hate macaroni."

Mom looked up. "Oh my — Leah!" She turned sharply. "What have you prepared?"

Leah ,young, nervous, hovering near the wall flinched visibly. "I am so sorry, ma'am. I forgot."

"Are you losing your memory?" Dad's voice dropped to that low, terrible register. The one that made the room shrink. "Zeke — arrange for another maid." He turned to Leah directly, pointing. "And you. You're fired."

I put down my fork.

I stood up.

Placed my hand over Dad's.

"Dad." He looked at me. "Please don't be too harsh. She forgot. Even you and I forget sometimes."

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"Thank your stars," he said finally, turning to Leah. "Go prepare something else immediately."

"No," I said.

Both my parents looked at me.

"It's alright, Dad. I'll eat the macaroni tonight. It's already late. She must be tired."

"But sweetie—"

"It's fine, Mom."

A beat. Mom looked at Leah. "Thank your God, Leah. She saved you. Go back to work."

Leah left the dining hall. But not before I caught the flash of something in her eyes something raw and grateful and quietly desperate, like a person who was used to having no one in their corner.

I picked up my fork and ate the macaroni.

It was terrible.

I ate every bite.

In my room I couldn't sleep.

I told myself it was jet lag. New pillows. The unfamiliar sounds of Seoul at night filtering through the glass walls.

But I kept seeing Leah's hands shaking when she left the room.

I slipped out of bed sometime after midnight, padded down the hallway and toward the kitchen on instinct. And then I heard it the soft, broken sound of someone trying very hard to cry quietly.

I followed it.

Found her under the prep table, on the cold kitchen floor, shoulders curved inward like she was trying to take up less space in the world. Her whole body shook with the effort of staying silent.

She couldn't have been much older than me.

I crouched down. Gently reached out and wiped the tears from her face.

She startled badly.

"You must be Leah, right?"

"Good — good evening, madam." Her voice was wrecked.

"It's alright." I sat down on the cold tiles beside her actual floor, no hesitation. "You can call me Camilla."

She stared at me like I'd said something in a foreign language.

"And please forgive me for getting you scolded earlier. I should stop being so demanding."

"No, it's alright." She shook her head quickly. "I made a mistake."

"Still." I looked at her properly. "Why are you working here? How old are you? Do your parents know?"

Something shifted in her face. Closed over, like a curtain drawing shut.

"It's a long story," she said quietly.

"I have time."

"Please." She glanced at the doorway. "You should go back to your room. It wouldn't be good if someone finds you here with me."

"It's fine, nothing will hap .."

"What the hell is going on in here?!"

I spun around.

Mom. Silk robe. Expression carved from absolute ice.

My stomach dropped.

"Wait, Mom — I can explain—"

"I told you to stay away from my daughter." She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Leah with that particular brand of cold fury that meant the decision was already made. "You're fired."

"Mom!" I was on my feet in an instant. "Can you please listen to me first? Why should she be punished just because she spoke with me?"

"Camilla, you cannot mix with them."

Something in me went very still.

"Mom." I kept my voice level. "This is my life. I am seventeen, not a child anymore. They are human beings — just like us."

Silence.

Mom looked at me.

I looked back.

"If you fire her," I said quietly, "you will lose my respect. And I mean that."

I didn't wait for a response. I turned and walked out.

My room felt too big when I got back to it. I sat on the bed and stared at the wall and tried to unknot the tightness in my chest.

A soft knock came, maybe twenty minutes later.

Mom slipped through the door.

"Please don't be angry with your mother, my baby." Her voice was softer now. The frost had thawed a little.

I kept my eyes on the laptop screen and said nothing.

"Leah still has her job," she said.

My head came up.

"Really?"

"Yes. That's what you wanted, right?"

I shut the laptop and crossed the room and hugged her. Properly. The way I had with Nanny back in Ukraine

"Thank you, Mom. You're the best."

She exhaled against my hair. "So you forgive me now?"

"Of course. I can never stay angry with you."

She pulled back and smoothed my hair from my face, the way she'd done since I was small.

"Now go to sleep. You have college tomorrow."

I smiled as she tuck me to bed , Mom is always like that since I was little so it wasn't a new thing to me

After she left, I lay back against my pillow and stared at the ceiling, and felt the excitement creep back in — warm and fluttery and impossible to contain.

Dulwich College Seoul.

Tomorrow.

I whispered it to myself like a secret.

I wonder if anyone still remembers me.

Dulwich College Seoul. Seven years was a long time. Long enough for people to forget faces, forget names, forget the girl who left without a proper goodbye.

Or maybe not.

I smiled, closed my eyes, and let sleep pull me under.

What I didn't know , what I couldn't have known, lying there warm and hopeful in the dark was that tomorrow wasn't going to be a quiet return.

It was going to be a collision.

And I was going to be right in the center of it.